ACM Student Research Competition

MobileSoft is hosting an ACM Student Research Competition (ACM SRC) sponsored by Microsoft Research. The competition is an internationally-recognized venue that enables undergraduate and graduate students to experience the research world, share their research results with other students and MobileSoft attendees, and compete for prizes.
The ACM Student Research Competition facilitates interaction with researchers and industry practitioners; providing both sides with the opportunity to learn of ongoing, current research in the area of mobile software. Additionally, the Student Research Competition gives students experience with both formal presentations and evaluations.

Selection Process

A maximum of 20 students (10 undergraduates, 10 graduates) will be selected to participate in the Student Research Competition at MobileSoft. Submissions are reviewed by a panel of experts, and are evaluated based on the quality of the work, novelty of approach, significance of contribution, and clarity of written presentation. Students whose submissions are accepted to participate in the competition are entitled to a stipend for their travel expenses, up to a maximum of US $500. Students can enter ICSE and MobileSoft SRCs, but may not be funded for both SRCs at ICSE and MOBILESoft.

At the conference, the first round of the competition evaluates the research during a poster presentation. The poster presentation is evaluated based on two facets:
• The presentation of the research, including the visual aspects of the poster and the student’s oral discussion.
• The research, specifically its quality, novelty, and the significance of the contribution.

Based on the results from the poster session, the judges will select students to advance to the second round of the competition. During the second round each student gives a short (5-10 minutes) presentation of their research, followed by a question and answer period. The judges evaluate the presentations and select the top three winners in each category. The winners receive prizes of US $500, US $300, US $200, respectively. After the conference, the winners from each category will advance to the ACM Grand Finals of the Student Research Competition, where all SIG conference contest winners are evaluated.

Submission

Submissions must be original research that is neither in submission nor already published at MobileSoft or another conference or journal. Also, submissions must be individual student research projects. The Student Research Competition is meant to be an opportunity for junior students to develop their skills as researchers and to give them an opportunity to showcase their work. One of the goals of the program is to focus on the student, their capabilities as a researcher, and their potential. Supervisors of the work should not be listed as co-authors; you must submit a single-authored version for the competition. Interested students should submit a two-page abstract using IEEE Formatting Guidelines – ICSE 2015 “Posters” submission category instructions (http://2015.icse-conferences.org/submission-guidelines) via EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mobilesoftsrc15).
The submission should describe:
• The research problem and motivation
• Background and related work
• Approach and uniqueness
• Results and contributions

Submissions are reviewed by a panel of experts, and are evaluated based upon the following criteria:
• Quality of work
• Novelty of approach
• Significance of contribution
• Clarity of written presentation

Competition Requirements

Participants must be undergraduates or graduate students pursuing an academic degree at the time of initial submission. Research completed while the student was an undergraduate may be submitted to the undergraduate category even if the student is now a first-year graduate student. Participants must be current members of the ACM and provide their ACM member number.